Number 196 - September 1999

Make your own removable hard drive for fun and profit and backups
by Merle Nicholson, President, Tampa PC Users Group, January 1999 "Bits of Blue"
I'd been developing this idea in my head for some time. And it's a pretty simple idea. You have a removable hard drive that you put into the PC, do a full system backup in 20 minutes, pop it out and put the hard drive in a safe place. If you're running a business from it, just take the hard drive home.     The idea got started mostly because of my lack of confidence in tape backups since Windows 95 came out. I think all of my own personal objections to tape backups have been satisfied now with better software except for two--cost and convenience, where a removable HD has the edge.     Tape -- The newest tape software now has you make DOS recovery diskettes that will load your operating system back on a new or reformatted disk and restore your hard drive as it was at the time of your last backup. For many years the procedure was to install Windows first, then your tape recovery program, recover from tape and then start reinstalling all the things that didn't work. The main problem is that you can't update files that are in use, and you have to use Windows to recover. It's time to look at your backup software now to see if it's time to upgrade.     The objections I have to using tape are many. One thing of course is that it takes a long time, so it has to run unattended. Do you look at the log (indeed, does it make a log for you in the first place?) to make sure everything went smoothly? Do you at least get a catalog of the tape each time to make sure the backup has actually been completed? Look at the date and size of the backup to make sure. I have known people who thought they were making backups and they were actually not accomplishing anything. You can set the software so that it doesn't halt on errors (a reasonable thing to do), set it to close when finished and not log the results. What do you have? No backup, probably. It's possible to get good useful backups, but it takes diligence and knowledge; it's not for disinterested employees who want to go home but have to do the weekly backup first.     Disk Images -- In the meantime, PowerQuest (DriveImage), Seagate (Ghost) and a couple of other companies came out with disk imaging software. These are really useful, and it's a mystery to me why it took so long to develop the products.     This type of software accomplishes many things, such as duplicating drives. The function that I'm interested in will make a compressed copy of a disk and write it to a file. One thing needs explaining. You have to write this file out to some other disk or partition or network drive, but not to itself, so [with] a one drive system [it] just can't be done. As for a network drive, this software runs in DOS, so you would have to have networking program files for DOS that are small enough to run from a diskette. I'm still looking for Microsoft Networking for DOS.     Starting Out -- On my personal machine, I have one drive with two partitions. In its previous incarnation it had two drives. When one failed, I removed both, bought a 6.4G and partitioned it in two so it would have the same file arrangement without installing all software, and just built a new computer to use as a server with the one remaining. Also I built my spouse a computer to replace her nice old 484 Toshiba Portege. So I have three computers at home (and two at work) to contend with, and life is getting complicated. For a while I was making a monthly drive image from one to the other partition, and then copying the files to the server drive for safekeeping. I even once copied the two files to tape. It worked, but hard drives are too cheap and life is just too short, and besides, I have two other machines to worry about that were getting occasional tape backups. I'd duplicate document directories from the two personal machines to the server when I thought of it.     Enter The Removable Hd -- So I looked at an IDE removable drive kit. As you can see from the pictures, it consists of a case that installs in a 5-1/4 bay, the same size as a CD-ROM but an important 3/4" longer. On the outside back of the case is a standard IDE 40 pin connector and a standard power connector, both just like the end of a hard drive. Inside the cartridge is a ribbon cable and a power connector that connects to the HD. The interface connector inside resembles a Centronics printer plug and socket. Notice also the small fan for cooling the hard drive. On the front is a key interlock. This key turns power off to the drive and releases a mechanical lock before allowing you to pull the cartridge out. It's a standard PC lock key. I hate these keys and would prefer a conventional lock with a unique key. The kits are $45 to $50 retail. From some ads I've seen it's possible that some brands don't have the fan. I needed three cases and one cartridge. They can be purchased separately on special order, but there wasn't much cost savings, so I bought three complete sets.     In addition to moving a single hard drive from machine to machine, another possibility is to have multiple hard drives for the same machine, so if you're, for instance, trying to learn Linux or NT server and have one machine, this may beat the "dual boot" situation. I suggested this to my oldest son who is learning operating systems, so I'm sending him my two extra cartridges and one complete set.	Installing -- Installation is straightforward. Install the case and connect the ribbon cable and power connector. In my case I used a connector from my CD-ROM cable and set the drive jumper to "slave" since all my machines have single hard drives and the CD-ROM is set as Secondary IDE Master. I set all the BIOS to detect a Secondary Slave as AUTO. Each machine hesitates only a moment looking for that drive when it's not installed. In the inside of the cartridge, connect the ribbon, paying attention to the pin numbering to make sure it isn't backwards, plug the power connector to the drive and last, position the drive and put the four mounting screws in. Thankfully I haven't seen a non-standard hard drive in many years where the power connector is on the other side of the IDE connector.     As an aside, I had gotten a good price a month ago on the 6.4G drive I'm using, but I just got a 6.4G Maxtor at Best Buy the day after Christmas for $99 after rebate. This is one reason it's cheaper than tape.     I used Partition Magic to partition the drive in two at about one-third as FAT16 and two thirds FAT32. One of our three machines is Win 98a, and my spouse doesn't want me messing with it. The other two are Win98 FAT32, which the Win 95 machine won't even recognize. In retrospect I should have used one partition FAT16, but it's not worth changing back now. Eventually we'll have them all Win 98 or Windows 2000.     Using The Drive -- Simply shut down Windows, turn the machine off, open the lock on the drive, insert the drive and lock it in the on position. Turn on the computer. If you have a partitioned main drive, as I do on my personal machine, just hold down Ctrl (Win 98) or press F8 at the right time (Win 95 and Win 98) to get the boot menu and select Command Line prompt. Since my main drive is partitioned as C and D, the removable will insert itself between as D, with the old D partition as E, and my CD-ROM as F:, so the best thing to do is to just not go into Windows. On my other two machines, it doesn't matter. [Editor's note--see IBM meeting report. If removeable drive has no primary, but only extended partitions, the drive letters on the 1st hard drive will not change.]     Since image programs run in native DOS, Windows must not be running. You can set up what you need three basic ways: On a boot diskette, as an icon on the desktop or Start Menu, or on the removable drive.     As an icon under Windows, no matter where the executable is, the properties for the program must be set to MS-DOS Mode under Properties, Program, Advanced. This causes Windows to exit, and reboot into DOS Mode and start the program automatically. If you go into Command Line Prompt, you can run the program manually from the command line, and if you use a boot diskette, you can call the image program in autoexec.bat. The boot diskette method is pretty clean, and you can have the image program on the diskette or on the removable drive.     So once a week, I go to one machine, restart with the removable in, boot to DOS, run the image software, go away for twenty minutes, shut down, remove the drive and start the machine again. I've backed up all three machines in an hour, easy.     Interim Backups -- You can't make an image backup every day, I wouldn't think, unless you're running a business and are developing things for clients, something like that where recovery time is critical. I have a reminder to do this weekly, and I have to admit I sometimes skip it. Not often though.     I do daily file copies of the document directories from our personal machines to the server. I'm evaluating a small shareware program called Backer 4.0 from Leanware. It's $35, and it seems to do what I want. It's a little difficult to understand how to set it up at first. To their credit, they have excellent on-line help and examples. The help recommends that you start out simple and grow to your needs, and I agree. The way I have it configured, I have two batch jobs, one for each personal machine. I have the folders on the two machines identified that I want backed up as the source and a directory structure on the server set up as the destination. I have it set up to synchronize the destination only to mirror the source. Many, many other options are available. Synchronize to the destination makes the destination reflect the source identically, so that when I delete a source file it deletes the backup too.     The part that I hesitate about is I'm not confident about my ability to identify all that must be backed up daily. Would you remember your Outlook or Netscape?     Address book? -- One thing I know is that when I have a full hard drive crash, the worst I can be is a week old, I can recover in not much more time than it takes to go buy a hard drive, and that lets me sleep better.     If you have any questions about this, don't hesitate to email me at MerleNic@TampaBay.rr.com.
Number 196 - September 1999